This page outlines some databases that use citation-network based approaches to searching. A method by which articles are recommended on the basis of their connection to other articles. This approach can be good for an introduction to a topic, but does not allow for a comprehensive, replicable search strategy required for a systematic review of the literature.
They are useful as a starting point or for expanding your search for literature on a topic, but should not be used as a substitute for established library databases and search tools.
The University of Bristol does not hold a subscription or licence to any of the following products, but you may find them useful supplementary tools for your research.
Connected Papers
Connected Papers can be useful for quickly generating a list of relevant papers to investigate. The tool works by taking a specific paper and then identifying similar papers via it's co-citation network (using Semantic Scholar data). It selects the "most closely related" papers and displays them as a graph or list. These papers are likely to be relevant, but it does not provide a comprehensive list and a large number of relevant papers may be missed since it does not display more than a certain number of papers.
Connected Papers is a commercial tool. An individual account is free for up to five analyses per month or a single month's access can be purchased for a small fee.
Research Rabbit
Research Rabbit works by taking a single paper or group of papers (e.g. a reference list from EndNote/Mendeley/Zotero) and generates recommendations. It shows a graph representing citations between the source paper and the recommendations, identifying the most 'connected'.
As with Connect Papers, we do not recommend using it for a systematic review of the literature, but it could be useful for scoping and gaining a broad overview of a topic.
The tool is free for individuals.
Litmaps
Litmaps is another tool to generate citation maps based on other works citing a given source paper. Once again, it does not provide a comprehensive list, but for an initial overview or as a supplementary search it could be useful. Our browser plug-in, LibKey, is integrated with Litmaps.
Litmaps is a commercial tool. An individual account is free with limited searching or a single month's access can be purchased at a student rate.
Keenious
Keenious is a tool that analyses the content of a document using large language models and then generates a list of relevant papers. These suggested papers can then be filtered by date, citation count or open access and can be exported to reference management software.
Keenious is a commercial tool, but limited-access is available to individuals for free together with the option of a less restricted account for a monthly fee.